"I can't fold trips!!!"

md261 on 15th Sept

PokerStars Game $70+$6 - Level V (75/150)
Seat 1: player1 (1360 in chips)
Seat 2: Hero(3170 in chips)
Seat 3: Villain(4470 in chips)
player1: posts small blind 75
Hero: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero[7s 6d]
Villain: raises 150 to 300
player1: calls 225
Hero: calls 150
*** FLOP *** [5c Ad 3h]
player1: checks
Hero: checks
Villain: bets 150
player1: folds
Hero: calls 150
*** TURN *** [5c Ad 3h] [4c]
Hero: bets 525
Villain: calls 525
*** RIVER *** [5c Ad 3h 4c] [Ah]
Hero: bets 2195 and is all-in
Villain: calls 2195
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Hero: shows [7s 6d] (a straight, Three to Seven)
Villain: shows [As Tc] (three of a kind, Aces)
Hero collected 6640 from pot

Hero somehow finds himself on a particularly juicy bubble, against a couple of enormous fish. Player1 is a standard big fish, and Villain is a classic Loose Passive hyper-fish. Villain Raises on the button; although he is chip leader, he is not raising to put pressure on, he is playing his cards, and raising with at least a semi-decent hand. The pot odds due to the Small blind calling combined with the fact they are both fish makes it a mandatory call with unsuited low-medium connectors.

The flop comes down and it is bad news for the heroic Hero, with a raise from the passive player, and a call from the Small blind, it is very likely that someone has hit the Ace. It gets checked round to the original raiser who min bets, the SB folds, and Hero calls. The fact that the Loose Passive Villain bet at all strongly implies he has an A, and the fact that he min-bet suggests he wants action with his "monster top pair". The other effect of the min bet, is that it gives enticing pot odds to Hero, the implied odds are such that if he hits his gutshot he may well be able to extract some serious value from the Loose Passive Villain.

Hero has his prayers answered, and the miracle gutshot hits on the turn, giving him the Nuts. It is now time to extract value. Given the chip stacks, Hero intends to put in 2 resonable size bets which Villain will definitely call, and will leave Hero as big stack.

But then another A hits on the river. This should actually make no difference, because from the Villain's point of view, it is unlikely that that card turned his hand from a loser into a winner (Hero would have to have a low 2pair like 34o for the A to make a difference). However, true fish find it hard to lay down Big hands on paper, you just can't fold Trip Aces! They are just too good a hand! If you get beaten when you hold trip Aces then it just wasn't meant to be, right?
Obviously this is wrong, but Hero takes advantage of this common line of thinking Big Fish have, and ups his river bet into an overpot stack, safe in the knowledge that Villain will suspect he's behind, but will be unable to make the "big laydown". Thus Hero extracts maximum value from his hand.

On a side note this approach has the opposite effect on quality players, if you stack rivers when you have monsters and suspect they also have a pretty hand, most will correctly work out the situation and chuck their hand into the muck. However, you can counteract this making the occasional big river bluff, safe in the knowledge that they will fold any big hand that it is obvious that they might hold (such as a staight when a flush comes out). Unless they are clairevoyant, they will be faced with a tough choice between calling to catch the occasional bluff they know you are making, and paying you off all those times you are not bluffing.

md261